Study of the Functional Brain Connectivity and Lower-Limb Motor Imagery Performance After Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation

Abstract

The use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been related to the improvement of motor and learning tasks. The current research studies the effects of an asymmetric tDCS setup over brain connectivity, when the subject is performing a motor imagery (MI) task during five consecutive days. A brain–computer interface (BCI) based on electroencephalography is simulated in offline analysis to study the effect that tDCS has over different electrode configurations for the BCI. This way, the BCI performance is used as a validation index of the effect of the tDCS setup by the analysis of the classifier accuracy of the experimental sessions. In addition, the relationship between the brain connectivity and the BCI accuracy performance is analyzed. Results indicate that tDCS group, in comparison to the placebo sham group, shows a higher significant number of connectivity interactions in the motor electrodes during MI tasks and an increasing BCI accuracy over the days. However, the asymmetric tDCS setup does not improve the BCI performance of the electrodes in the intended hemisphere.